Collapse in Afghanistan

The botched withdrawal from Afghanistan is the first major foreign policy crisis of the Biden administration. The decision to withdraw is not to blame. This was a failure of execution rather than strategy. The US presence was increasingly unsustainable – the United States had already withdrawn a significant number of troops, the Taliban were rapidly gaining territory, and few Americans cared anymore. Biden inherited a broken peace process and the prospect of a renewed conflict with a strengthened Taliban if he reneged on Trump’s commitments. Continuing the fight would have required a military surge that no one in Biden’s Cabinet, least of all the president, was willing to support. Withdrawal was the best of truly bad options. President Biden has strong convictions on this, which came through in his recent address to the nation.

What was surprising – and frankly shocking, given the expertise and experience of the national security and foreign policy team Biden has assembled – was the sheer incompetence of the execution. There were four main failures:

• Military and intelligence failure. US intelligence agencies thought Kabul could hold off the Taliban for 2-3 years. Once the Taliban’s offensive kicked into high gear, the intelligence assessment dropped to 2-3 days. Two facts here are truly staggering: 1) The US spent 20 years and $88 billion training an Afghan force that refused to fight, and 2) after 20 years of personally training Afghans, the United States still didn’t understand (or didn’t want to understand) their true capabilities and will to fight.

• Coordination failure. The United States fought alongside allies for two decades. But when the time came to pull the plug, Biden did so alone – both in terms of the policy review, the decision, the announcement, the execution and the aftermath (including evacuating citizens, accepting refugees, providing humanitarian support and so on). US allies expected a different American attitude toward its friends, following four years of Trump’s “America first.”

Aside from allies, the United States also passed on the opportunity to engage with China. Neither country wanted Afghanistan to collapse into a failed state or to once again export international terrorism. There was room for creative diplomacy on one of the few areas where the Chinese and Americans actually agree, but the chance was wasted.

• Planning failure. Getting the intelligence and the coordination wrong didn’t have to spell disaster had the Biden administration effectively planned for alternative scenarios. But based on everything we know, the administration didn’t. The United States had to airlift troops in from the mainland to assist in the evacuation – sending in 3,500 more than it had withdrawn in the first place.

The Kabul airport was overrun with desperate Afghan civilians; a US transport plane evacuated with thousands of Afghans running alongside it, and three stowaways fell to their deaths after the plane took off. The planning to provide safety for thousands of Afghans who had helped American forces was nonexistent, and many will be left behind. (To be continued)